Former Top Chef Now a Servant

By Seth
Raymond Gonzalez, Social Services Director at Faith City Ministries (FCM), was bursting at the seams with a big story to tell, and his black eyes darted down the nicely painted hallways as he decided where would be a good place to begin. He settled on starting the tour in the kitchen.

The kitchen was bustling with activity as they began serving the first of three lunches that day; each lunch was representative of the different groups of people the organization reaches seven days a week: one for the “students,” both men and women who are going through a 12-month rehabilitation program that sees participants from addiction to productive lives with a great rate of success, another being families and single women who are currently homeless but are getting back on their feet while staying at the NE 2nd Avenue campus, and finally between 100 and 150 homeless people who need a meal. This three-meal process happens three times per day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“In a given month, we serve between 12 and 14 thousand meals. We’re the only organization in the area that is doing it right now on a daily basis,” said Raymond. Planning and cooking all of those meals would be a logistical nightmare for most people, but Raymond has a unique background.

He moved to Amarillo over 30 years ago, from Santa Fe, New Mexico, when he was 18. “I needed to leave. My parents didn’t think that Santa Fe was a good place for me. I wasn’t a good guy. So I came here with a one-way bus ticket, a suitcase, and a job reference from an old acquaintance. I started working as a busboy at the Amarillo Club.” Eventually, he apprenticed with one of the top five chefs in the country learning everything about a restaurant, from slicing vegetables to managing the food supply. He was even voted Amarillo’s Best Chef two years in a row while he worked at the Downtown Athletic Club. He shies away from those accolades now.

“I enjoyed those experiences, but it was never my passion. I don’t want people to remember me as just a chef, I want them to remember me as a servant,” he said. Which is why he is currently training one of the FCM students to manage the kitchen. He introduces Rick, a polite middle-aged man with a graying goatee and glasses.

“Rick just got promoted to the Interim Director of Food Services,” said Raymond. Rick is clearly pleased with his new title as it speaks a great deal about the progress he has made in the past several months.

Raymond continues the tour at the loading dock where food and donations are delivered. “We usually buy about $6,700 worth of food every month from the Food Bank and other vendors. It sure does help when people donate though, especially with Thanksgiving coming up. Turkeys and hams would be a blessing.”

In fact, Faith City Ministries is entirely funded by donations from individuals.
“We have some people who can give a lot, and we have some people who mail us 50 cents every month. That’s what they can afford. It’s all appreciated. There are always people who need to be fed, but we like to provide a place where these people still have some identity, where they feel like somebody. This place is more than just a soup kitchen. We have a shelter for children, we give out clothing, and we help with addiction; that’s why our name changed from Faith City Mission to Faith City Ministries.

For more information about donating to Faith City Ministries, please visit their website at www.faithcity.org, or give them a call at (806) 373-6402.

A Farewell To Arms - Conversation 1

It's official. The first book for conversation is Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms." If you care to join this conversation, then read the whole novel, write your thoughts, and send them our way. It may be a little while before this conversation gains some momentum because we're all busy and we don't sit around reading books all day. But we're confident that once we've had the chance to let this book brew a little then we'll have a good conversation from a variety of very talented writers.

By the way, if you're new to the Writers' Common, conversations about books aren't the only things we do around here. We'd also like to encourage people to send in some journalism and humor pieces.

Conversations

If you've been to the Welcome section, then you'll see that we like to promote relationships here at the Writers' Common.

A while back a few of us read Oryx & Crake, a novel by Margaret Atwood. Each of us read it at different times over a period of about six months. As we would finish different sections of the book we would bring it up in conversation. It wasn't a monthly book club meeting, like Oprah's little thing (which by the way, she's been knocking it out of the park on her selections lately) with a curriculum and prescribed critical thinking questions, it was just that we couldn't help talking about Ms. Atwood's book. It was a deeply affecting book, and since we knew that several other people had read it around the same time we would bring up different sections to be discussed while they were still fresh on everyone's mind. It kind of surprised us that it was that enjoyable to recall the work. There were lots of, "Oh yeah. I forgot about that part. What a great book."

Now, before you say, "I thought this was a Writers' Common, not a book club. If I had wanted to get together with my girlfriends, drink Swiss Mocha, and talk about the latest Francine Rivers' book, I would have done that. But I wanted to write." Just hold on, we're getting there. We're going to launch a few "official" books that some of us are going to read for kicks. Right now, we're thinking some Hemingway (we're currently involved in a debate about which novel). As soon as we decide, then we'll post the selection and open the Common to peoples' responses to the work. We'll leave the section open for further responses for six months. We want from you, the writers, thorough responses to the book. It doesn't have to be a critical analysis of the entire novel, in fact, please don't do that. But we would like you to write about scenes, themes, motifs etc. Also, if you have a question, feel free to post that. Somebody will probably have an answer. We find that this sort of conversation helps us digest the work. Kind of like how certain fats in butter help you to digest vitamins that are naturally found in vegetables better than if you just ate the vegetables alone.

This first novel will be a bit of an experiment to see if this blog can handle something like this. But if it works out, then we'll continue to post new books for conversation. Just look on the right side of the blog for new books. If you have a suggestion for a book, you can submit it to the editors, but don't get your hopes up.

We'll link each conversation together by book title, and you will be able to read all of the responses as they come in. We think this will inspire some good reading, and eventually good writing.

My Musical Heritage

By Seth
1. America’s “Horse with No Name” - The first time I remember hearing this song was in my cousin’s Dodge Daytona, although it wasn’t the first time I heard it because I already knew the chorus. I was almost in Kindergarten , and my cousin was probably 18. He came around in the summers to help my uncle and dad work on the farm. He always asked if I had a girlfriend, and when I told him, “No” he would always say, “Good, they cost too much money.” He had a permed mullet, wore a black stetson and hot pink cowboy shirts, and I thought he was awesome. When I was in jr. high, he knocked a girl up who he eventually married and had more kids with. Now he refs jr. high basketball games after his real job. He used to be so cool.

2. Phil Collins’ “Another Day in Paradise” - On Sunday afternoons somewhere around 2nd grade, I would come home from church and have to clean my bedroom. What usually happened was me sitting on my bed listening to Casey Casum’s Top 40. This song was number 1 for awhile, and mind you, I do think twice, because it’s just another day for me, for me and you, in paradise. Poor bag lady.

3. James Taylor’s “Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” - Sometime around Kindergarten or first grade my family took a trip to Riodoso. I gambled $3 at the horse races on a slow horse with a name like Moonshadow or something (which happens to be the name of a cool Cat Stevens song that will not make this list). I lost $3 of my dad’s money that day. Anyway, the soundtrack to that trip was a recently released James Taylor album, and one song in particular was awesome. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is about a guy who killed a bully outlaw. There’s also a movie with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart by the same name.

4. Jon Secada’s “Just Another Day”, Rod Stewart’s “Rhythm of My Heart” (Actually several songs off of his Vagabond Heart album, the last decent Rod Stewart album) - Country music was exploding at this point in my life. Brooks and Dunn came out with Boot Scootin’ Boogie, Garth Brooks was causing my friends to wear Wranglers. I joined in on listening to those radio stations, but really when I was thinking about this part of my life (5th grade), the only thing I could remember was my mom saying that she hated country music because it was so depressing, and her listening to these songs instead.

5. dcTalk’s entire “Free at Last” album - In 7th grade I would carpool to basketball practice and the kid I rode with only listened to this album (he was a redheaded guy named Brady Schenk who was an amazing baseball player, and in high school had a great collection of oldies that we all liked to listen to a lot). When I hear this album, I actually have a physical reaction that feels like running lines at 6:30 in the morning followed shortly by standing in a cloud of Aquanet and Stetson cologne while some fat kid was taking a crap.

6. Boyz II Men’s “II” album - My girlfriend in 8th grade got me this album, along with a small bottle of Nautica cologne, for my 14th birthday. She broke my heart 3 times in the matter of a month and a half, and she was the second girl I ever wrote poetry to. I wooed her by stealing some Tootsie Rolls from the teacher’s desk during detention one day.

7. Cranberries “Linger” and “Zombie,” and the Eagles’ “Hell Freezes Over” - I remember recording the Cranberries on Saturday Night Live, and asking my dad if he knew what chords Dolores O’Riordan was playing on Zombie. That’s probably the first time I was interested in playing a song. Hmm. I just remembered that. Hearing The Eagles’ Learn to Be Still is a decided turning point in my life.

8. Beethoven: Fur Elise (With Nature Sounds)- I have no idea why I had this album, but after my 8th grade girlfriend broke my heart for the third time I listened to this every night while I went to sleep.

9. Guns and Roses’ “November Rain”- I bought Use Your Illusion I the same day I bought Led Zeppelin IV and Eagles’ Hell Freezes Over. The other two fell off the radar after I heard Don’t Cry. But November Rain won me over.

10. Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” - I bought my first guitar magazine because this was on the cover. And wrote my first song with the chords that I learned from that song. I also called my friend Eran that week and asked him if he wanted to start a band. He dropped playing bass in his brother’s hardcore punk band. Eran could play the solo to AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long, and I was sold on live music from that point on. But CCR did it.

11. Guns and Roses’ “Paradise City”- For those of you who think that I can’t use this song because I already have a Guns and Roses song, then you have a thing or two to learn about G’n’R. This is on Appetite for Destruction which is a whole other ball park from Use Your Illusion. This was one big party.

12. Guns and Roses’ “Estranged”- What’s funny is I was listening to this at the same time that One Headlight was around. I liked that song, I used to sing the part about the beat up truck in my English class with some other guys, but I only had room for Guns and Roses. I listened to this on repeat for about 4 months. I also bought the live concert in Tokyo on VHS and watched that about 80 times. I think my parents were worried about me.

14. James Taylor’s “Greatest Hits Vol. 1,” and Don McLean’s “Vincent”- Thanks to my new friend and roommate Ryan Culwell, I was reintroduced to James Taylor, but the famous stuff that I should have already heard. If you've only ever heard James Taylor in the context of your parents or the oldies station, you should really give him a shot. He really is an amazing songwriter (and while you're giving him a shot, pick up some Paul Simon. Get past the cheeseball production and listen to the songs). Also, Don McLean’s Vincent is amazing. He kills the cliché we've made of Van Gogh's Starry Night.

15. The Wallflower’s “One Headlight" - The summer after my freshman year in college, Napster got huge. And then I ripped Jakob Dylan off. Actually, he was on the cover of Rolling Stone (with a white Telecaster) that I somehow was getting a free subscription to, and I read an article that changed my life. "Oh, nobody died, it was just a metaphor. There's not really a beat up truck? (This place is old/ It feels just like a beat up truck / I turn the engine, but the engine doesn't turn / It smells like cheap wine, cigarettes / This place is always such a mess / Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn). That was just a simile for the loss of innocence? It makes so much sense." This is an amazing song. This song is an experience. I think my jaw still drops when I think how perfectly this song is written. I feel sorry for Jakob Dylan who has to sing it everywhere he goes so that it's lost its meaning for him. But I guess that's what the song is about, anyway.

16. Anything Third Day - This was my Christian music phase. I didn’t listen to anything but Third Day for about 2 years. They were really a pretty good rock band, Christian or otherwise, until Come Together. They had a four song EP called Southern Tracks (which I believe was recorded at the same place as the Wallflowers’ Rebel, Sweetheart) that sounded like them having a little fun playing southern rock before they had to tighten up and play polished contemporary Christian music (I'm happy for their success). I had to steal it on Napster because it’s not available anywhere else.

17. Ryan Adam’s “Sweet Lil’ Gal” - After I graduated from college there was a period of several months where I moved back in with my parents before I found a job. I slept a lot, did some farmwork, read a lot of Texas history, applied for jobs in other parts of the United States, read Robert Penn Warren’s “All the King’s Men” (which affected me at least as profoundly as One Headlight). One afternoon I woke from a nap in a pool of sweat crying to this song when the piano hits that dissonant chord and the guitar delays forever. I think that was the lowest point ever in my life. I'm much happier now.